Feb 22nd, 2015

Author: donich_admin

R and I went to Fort William today. We looked at the forecasts this morning; R uses the BBC and I use the MSN weather app on my phone. They both have their good days and their bad ones, though in common with all weather forecasts they seem to get things wrong with monotonous regularity.

On the whole, MSN takes a far more pessimistic view of the weather than BBC, and right enough, today the weather on the BBC was quite reasonable, whereas MSN reckoned we were due for heavy snow. We havered about a bit over whether to go or not, but in the end we did.

We were ok on the way there although it was pretty dismal (Glencoe not looking at its best). On the way back, however, MSN was proved right as the snow got worse and worse. At one point near Rannoch summit we thought we were not going to make it home, not because the landrover wouldn’t make it, but because there were so many caravans and lorries on the road that we were sure something would get stuck and block the road.

In the end we made it home, no thanks to the many people who think that a bit of snow is an excuse to drive at 10mph. We were pretty fortunate though, because about half an hour after we got back, the road closed and was blocked for hours.

It was noticeable that no gritter had been anywhere near the A82 (main road to Fort William and Inverness), whereas our little B road to Lochgoilhead had been gritted all the way….